Jody McAuliffe
Professor of the Practice of Theater Studies
THEATRST 89S / DANCE 89S / NEUROSCI 89S
WF 10:05 a.m. - 11:20 a.m.
Bryan Center 127 Rehearsal Studio
Are you interested in learning how to reduce pain and anxiety, cultivate vitality, and improve performance in any area of your life? In this course, I will teach Awareness Through Movement—a system of body awareness and lessons developed by Moshe Feldenkrais--designed to expand students’ possibilities for new movement patterns that are more comfortable, efficient, and useful. Students can anticipate improvement in posture, vision, imagination, and personal awareness. The Feldenkrais Method is a form of bodywork combining, science, art, expression, and function. Feldenkrais was an Israeli engineer, physicist, inventor, martial artist, and student of human behavior. The Method uses movement in a variety of ways to enable actors, athletes, musicians, dancers, and all movers to explore motivation and action, and other movement concepts: spontaneity, compulsion, resistance, and cross-motivation. It focuses on the fundamentals of human functioning and developing potential, enabling students to travel beyond their habits in ways they may not have been able to envisage otherwise. The Method also asks all students to become more aware of how they learn. In addition to lessons, we will read and discuss Feldenkrais’ seminal text, The Elusive Obvious, and selected excerpts from other texts. Students will keep a learning journal, documenting their progress.
Reserved for first-year students, transfer students, and students with a first-year exception
Theater Studies